


Halloween

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Past Relationship(s), X-Files OctoberFicFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-29 08:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8482603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Four Halloweens with four different men.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: N/A  
> A/N: From a tumblr prompt.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

_Halloween 1989._  
Daniel takes her to a party. She hasn’t had time for parties the last few years, but he insists. She dresses as a fairly demure black cat: a leotard, leggings, black ears made of construction paper. Daniel goes as a pirate in beat up boots and an open shirt.

After a few glasses of a lurid concoction the host is calling punch, she gets bold and traces the exposed vee of his chest with one fingernail. He catches her hand and kisses her fingers. She sees the indention on the third finger of his left hand, the slightly pale skin. Her head buzzes and it isn’t just from the alcohol. He’s married. He’s been taking off his ring to teach, to meet with her.   
(In some corner of her mind, she knew. Maybe it was in his biography when she was researching medical schools. Maybe there was a photograph somewhere of him and his wife and oh, he has a daughter almost her age. But she had put it away in that corner, stuffed it into a box and sat on it.)

“You’re feisty tonight,” he murmurs, but she already knows it’s over. Goodbye to the late night study sessions that turned into more practical lessons of anatomy. Goodbye to coffee in the commons. Goodbye to anticipating the ringing of her phone. Goodbye to the status the others accorded her as Doctor Waterston’s chosen protegé. 

How foolish she must look. How out of her depth. 

She lets him take her home, but stops him at the door when he leans down languorously to kiss her.

“What’s your wife’s name?” she asks.

He pauses, almost flinches, and slowly straightens back up. “Barbara.”

“You know I wouldn’t have done this if I had known.” (She might have, she thinks to herself, but locks that away too.)

“I know,” he says. “This won’t change things in class, Dana. I’ve never given you more attention than you deserved.”

“Thank you,” she says, and closes the door on his bereaved expression.

When the recruiter from the FBI comes to talk to her, she listens avidly.

 _Halloween 1991._  
Jack takes her to a party. She wears a long green skirt and a purple halter top, letting her hair spill over her shoulder. She’s tinted it redder for the evening at Missy’s urging. 

“No one’s going to know you’re Ariel,” she scolded Dana.

“No one needs to,” Dana said. “It’s more of a meet and greet than anything else.”

And so it is, as with most of her outings with Jack. They talk to the right people, the kind of people who have connections. She smiles prettily, only because it occasionally allows her to get a word in edgewise. 

“You’re a good sport, Dana,” Jack tells her as they leave. He has his arm draped around her shoulders. He’s dressed as Prince Eric. It’s remarkably similar to Daniel’s pirate costume, except that the boots are black instead of brown. 

“I want us both to end up in the nice offices,” she tells me. “And I don’t want to be your secretary.”

He laughs. “Nobody would think you’re my secretary.”

“Hmm,” she says. “What about the one who asked if I was your secretary?”

“George? Just his sense of humor,” Jack says. He jiggles her shoulder gently. “From now on, I’ll introduce you as professor girlfriend, M.D. That better?”

“It’s a start,” she says.

 _Halloween 1992._   
She and Ethan go to a party together. He wants to introduce her to all his friends. She wears a witch hat and one of Missy’s long dresses. He wears a clown suit and a red nose that she has to take off before she kisses him.

“So, Dana, what do you do as an FBI agent?” asks one of Ethan’s colleagues, she’s already forgotten which one. They’re all a bunch of easy-going, well-tailored people sipping nice wine. She thinks this one’s name is Carla.

“Oh, I’d rather not say too much,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “It’s a bit…gruesome.”

“Not to mention bizarre,” Ethan says, putting his arm around her. “Real spooky stuff, huh, Dana?”

“Some of the time,” she says. “Other times it’s just a bit sad. My end of things is mostly the autopsies.”

Carla shudders delicately. “Autopsies? That is gruesome.”

“Ever had someone come back to life?” someone else asks.

“No,” Scully says firmly. She can almost hear Mulder flipping through his filing cabinet in search of examples of corpses reviving in the morgue or under the pathologist’s knife. But Mulder’s taken up enough of her time lately, as Ethan has gently pointed out. She pushes him out of her mind and cuddles into Ethan’s side.

“Keeping the world safe for democracy,” Ethan declares proudly, kissing her on the forehead. His red nose knocks off her witch’s hat, but she smiles at him anyway. 

He’s sweeter than the tubes full of sugar the hosts are distributing to the children who straggle by. She already knows it won’t work out - she works too much, she’s not willing to sacrifice her career even for the family she’d love to have - but she’s happy enough to savor his kindness in the meantime. 

_Halloween 1999._  
She gives out candy to the trick-or-treaters who trickle by. Mulder deliberates between horror movies in the background. He’s dressed as the Headless Horseman - he’s spooked more than one of the children who’ve come to her door, answering with his false head tucked under his arm and his turtleneck pulled over his face. She’s not dressed up, but at least she’s not just wearing black.

“Scully, you’re killing the mood,” Mulder chides her.

“Mulder, you don’t have to dress up to hand out candy,” she says. “Besides, I don’t have anything that would make an appropriate costume.”

“I could go through your closet and see,” he offers, raising his eyebrows.

“No, thank you,” she says. These casual clothes feel enough like a costume. She won’t tell him that.

“What about _The Fly_?” he asks.

“Not again,” she says.

“ _Poltergeist_?”

“Not again,” she repeats.

“ _Bride of Chucky_? _Children of the Corn_?” he suggests.

“Mulder, you didn’t bring any of those,” she says.

“You’re too good for me, Agent,” he says, and holds out a video case. “ _The Ring_.”

“Jesus, Mulder,” she mutters. “I was planning on sleeping.”

“I’ll crash on the couch,” he says with a wink. “You’ll be safe with me, Scully.”

The doorbell rings before she has to say anything to that, but she’s grinning like a jack o’ lantern when she opens the door to the next batch of costumed children.


End file.
